“Dear Mom”: A Letter From Your Baby Boomer Daughter on Mother’s Day

Dear Mom,

You are the reason I am who I am. I learned so much about being a mom from watching you. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that oftentimes you were making it up as you went along, situation by situation, daughter by daughter. There really is no “how to be a good mom” playbook.

You were a young mom with five little girls who dedicated your life to raising us to be strong, independent women. You checked our homework every night, almost ensuring we would get an “A” after all the “rewrites and re-dos”; you convinced us that college follows high school (not a choice); you always raised your hand to accompany us on school field trips and church trips. You were PTA president and a community activist. You were a wife, and a dutiful only child to your own mom, but above all, you were mommy.

As as adult living nearly a thousand miles away, you were by my side for life’s major events, including the birth of my children, and the passing of my only son. You taught me the necessity of being involved in my children’s lives. You taught me that raising my family was my most important job, but that being a role model who also invests in herself was also a priority.

Thank you for the love, strength, resilience and sense of empowerment you instilled in my sisters and me. I hope we have been successful in modeling these values for our children as they grow into adulthood.

We will always be there for them as you have been there for us!

“Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown. In my heart it don’t mean a thing.” –Toni Morrison